FIRE
by JNSx7
Summary: Takes place after the trilogy. "There was a fire. I heard the girls screaming, banging on the walls, trying to escape. I was pounding on the door, trying to get out. I was screaming. I was crying. In the end, it was the smoke that got me. ...I'm dead."
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: I love this book trilogy. I just had to do a FanFiction on it.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own _Everlost. Everlost_ is the property of Neal Shusterman.**

**FIRE**

**Prologue**

I woke up lying on the wooden floor, not remembering how I got there. I got to my knees, looking at my dark surroundings: brown, wood floor; chipped, white paint on the walls. Not much.

I felt strange, so I decided to go to the bathroom. I thought that if I would be quiet enough, I wouldn't wake anyone. I stood up, noticing my white pajamas that are about two sizes too big. I walked up the wooden stairs that are in much need of repair. I didn't want to take those stairs, for they squeak very loudly, but it was the only way to the bathroom, so I stepped lightly on the stairs, and strange enough, they gave off no noise, yet I continued to move up the stairs slowly. When I got to the bathroom, I slowly opened the door only wide enough for me to slip inside and close right behind me.

I got out the step-stool and stood on it, looking at myself in the mirror, looking for any signs of illness. I opened my eyes wider using my fingers; I stuck my tongue out to look at my tonsils. I looked like a healthy girl.

I saw my short, brown hair that comes to my eyes; my big, brown eyes; my red cheeks; I looked fine, but I still wanted to make sure, so I opened the mirror to reveal the cabinet, thinking it had medicine, but instead had only disinfectors and an opened box of matches.

I was about to close the lid, but stopped because something catch my attention. At the corner of the bottom shelf was a folded up piece of paper. Curious, I picked it up and unfolded it. I could barely read, but there were only two words I could easily make out, "I'm sorry". Below the words was a drawing of a map; maybe of the house, and on the map there was a section circled multiple times. I wanted to know why. On the paper there was a small key.

Following the direction of the map on tip-toes, I went to the circled area. I never been in that area of the house. He forbade us from going back there; yet, I still went, slowly onward to the unknown area.

I finally came across a cracked door with a round, bronze door handle. I was terrified, breathing deep and slow. It felt like forever until I finally mustered up the courage to move my hand with the key slowly towards the key-hole. I twisted until it made a click. I reached for the handle. It was warm. I turned it, ever so gently; ever so slowly, and I opened it.

I saw a girl about my age lying on a wooden floor in a dark room. But something about her made me kept staring at her; something was wrong. I looked closer and noticed she was wearing makeup, a lot of it. Eyeliner, lip-stick, red powder, all sorts of it, and it looked like it was applied poorly: the lip-stick all over her mouth, the eyeliner way out-of-place. She just looked... wrong. I noticed that half of her hair was the length of her eyes while the other half was the length of her shoulder.

I was confused. Who is she? Why is she like that? Why is she here? But then I noticed something more hair-raising: there was another girl lying next to her... and another...

and another...

and another.

The room was filled with them. One next to the other was another girl in similar conditions, all about the same age. I panicked. I closed the door; I ran down the hall, down the stairs, and got to the back door. I grabbed the door-knob, turned it, pushed out; but it barely budged. I pushed harder, nothing. I tried harder. I tried faster. I was on a breaking point. I ran to the front door, but it was the same.

I ran to the little window to try to see what was blocking the door. What I saw made no sense. I saw that the outside of the door has been boarded up. I was breathing very heavily. No one lived near there, so I thought that I could very likely die.

I looked outside for the first time since I woke up. The trees... the trees were gone! There was a road! That was never there before—how was there a road? But the road, like the girls, also looked wrong. It was... blurry—moving, like seeing it underwater.

I felt something in my hand. I looked down and I remembered that I was still holding the map, but the back-end was facing me, and I saw that there was something written there. I held it up to my face and read, "No more risk. They all have to go. And with their bodies up in flames, so would the evidence.

I dropped the paper.

I remembered, at least, some of it.

There was a fire. I heard the girls screaming, banging on the walls, trying to escape. I was pounding on the door, trying to get out. I was screaming. I was crying. In the end, it was the smoke that got me.

...I'm dead.

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><p><span><strong>Chapter I: Rigg<strong>

**Rigg's P.O.V.:**

I was a teenaged girl on a dirt bike known as a PES1, passing people as I sped passed them. That is when my story began... or... at least, to my memory. Being dead makes one forget about their life alive. It just happens to the dead; our memories of us alive just goes away, like cloth on fire. I don't even remember my first name. The only indication of a name I have is written on the label of my leather jacket. It says, Rigg.

But enough about my unknown life, let me tell you what I do know. I'm dead, that much is obvious. I didn't immediately know that I was dead. I "woke up" in the middle of a freeway. On me was a silver motorcycle with dark blue lines. I sat up, pushing off the trial bike with ease.

I looked at my surroundings, not quite sure what was going on. If my memory served me, it was winter; but the surrounding had no ice, no snow. I remembered I was riding on the PES1, going over the speed limit, taking a turn, when suddenly, my motorcycle swerved on ice, and I saw myself heading towards a truck.

I looked at myself to make sure I was fine, and surprisingly, my white shirt, black pants, white sneakers, and a fingerless, black glove on my left hand were all fine.

I looked at my arms and legs: all fine.

I felt my long, blonde hair to make sure it was fine.

Yep.

I was perplexed; I was completely fine. Then I looked around me again, noticing that everything looked blurry. I rubbed my eyes, thinking that it would help my vision, nothing. I shrugged it off. I didn't know it at the time, but it wasn't my vision failing.

I got up, and went to the PES1; I opened up the storage under the seat and got out the black leather jacket, and a silver helmet and I put them on. I got on the bike, started it up, wanting to go home, when suddenly, I realized I didn't know where to go. I checked my pockets to see if I had a phone on me, but instead all I found was some sort of coin. I couldn't make out any shape or form on the coin, it just looked like some old coin. I put the coin back in my pocket, not remembering how it got there in the first place.

Realizing I had no phone with me, I decided to just ride my dirt bike, thinking that it the answer would just come to me. I drove and drove, passing signs and people as I drove, but I still couldn't remember. Unbeknownst to me, I would forget nearly everything of my life.

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><p><strong>AN: If you want to know what her bike looks like, go to my profile profile page and it might be somewhere in the Rigg section.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter II: Einstein**

**Einstein's POV:**

"Hey, Lewis&Clark, come look at this!" I ecstatically called out.

"Huh? Wha'?" He said through a mouthful of potato chips.

"Come here! See what I have just discovered!" I shouted out to him, failing to hold in my excitement.

"Sure." He said that like he was bored out of his mind. It's probable that he was. "I have nothing better to do."

"Of course not, you're dead. Now just get over here!" I said to him, losing my patience.

"Okay. Okay." He said in his deep voice as he came over to see what I wanted to show him.

"Now, what is this?" I asked, holding up a glass plate which—of course—must have crossed over into Everlost, a world where kids under the age of eighteen go when they haven't reached the light at the end of the tunnel. I and Lewis&Clark, for example.

"Uhhhh... Can it possibly be a plate?" He said sarcastically.

"Precisely. But, what details about it can you see?" I asked, getting excited.

"Uhhh..." He thought through another mouthful of chips he pulled out of his pockets; which, for some reason, never ran out of potato chips. If he wasn't dead, he most certainly would have been fat because of all of those chips. "It's glass. It's shiny. It's round. It's..."

"Yes!" I said, cutting him off. "It's round. And because it's round it has no point. Correct?"

"Uhhh... yeah?" He said, clearly getting impatient. But, as he said before, he has nothing better to do. So listening to the only Afterlight in miles seems to be the only entertainment his bored, little, empty head of his has.

"And because things in Everlost, like us Afterlights, have no physical matter at all means we sink into the ground. Like how we would have sunk into the ground if it wasn't for this shack that crossed over into Everlost. I suspect this shack was owned by a carpenter out in this wilderness—but that's not the point. The point is, we're not sinking because of it." I explained.

"Yeah. So? Where ya goin' with this, British Einstein." He said, taking another handful of potato chips and shoved it all in his mouth. I think his mouth got bigger over the years.

"Well, my American friend, when Afterlights walk on living ground we sink. Water can't cross, so water has no effect on keeping us afloat. _Except_ for boats that crossed because they were created to float on water. And whatever the item was created for in the _living_ world _must_ do its job in Everlost. Just like this plate here." I held up the plate again. "It was not created to break, so it cannot." I set the plate down on the shack's floor then I picked up a claw hammer and hit the plate with it. As I have said, it did not break.

"And..." I continued, picking up the plate and setting the hammer back where I found it. "...as you said before, it's round." I said with a smile.

Lewis&Clark just stared at me, continuing to chew on a mouthful of chips. He swallowed and said, "Einstein, ya lost ya mind. Any fool can see that it's round."

"And because you pointed it out proves your point." I insulted. "As I was saying," drawing his attention back. "We sink because we have no physical matter and we walk with static friction, meaning we use our feet to push the ground below us to move. But a wheel is round, making it move with not just static friction, but also rolling friction. The difference between how we walk and how a wheel moves is that walking takes time to move from one point to the next. While wheels have no point, so moving from one area of the perimeter to the next area is immediately." I placed the plate on its side. I intended to move onto the living world. "Now watch." I pushed it and it rolled onto the living world.

"Watch closely." I pointed to the plate as it rolled and did not sink. "It's not sinking into the ground. But only until it stops." A few seconds later, it fell and sunk.

"Which, in conclusion, an Afterlights safest way of traveling on land are by wheels." I ended with a smile toward Lewis&Clark, feeling proud of myself.

Lewis&Clark blinked, swallowed, and said, "Wha'?"

"Curse your stupidity."

"This ain't my... profession. I ain't a scientist of wheels and feet movement. I just have an unlimited supply of potato chips in my pockets and I'm the dude with the map." He pulled out the map from his pocket. Disgusting, I know, but only he can pull out the map from there. Anyone else would only pull out potato chips.

"This here map..." he started speaking, unfolding the map in the process, "shows us everywhere it is in ten miles North, South, East, and West." He slammed down the square map on the floor. "If it wasn't fuh me and this map here, ya would have sunk a _long_ time ago, British Einstein."

"And if it wasn't for _me_, _you_ would have sunk a long time ago." I shot back.

"Then I guess we're even then."

"Great. Now shut up and let us plan where we should go next." I reached for the map, but he took it and put it in his pocket.

"No." He said angrily. Immature, that's what I call him.

"Oh come now, we need to plan on where to go next."

"Not until ya admit that ya need me." He said, crossing his arms.

"What?" I said, my demeanor getting angrier.

"Admit it. I'm stronguh, talluh, and I'm braveuh than ya."

"You're acting like a child."

"I'm only, like, fifteen—oh, yeah, and admit that I'm olduh."

"If it wasn't for me that Afterlight, Johnnie-O and his followers, would have sunk you for sure. _You_ admit that _I_ am smarter than you, and a better leader than you. And besides, your body is older, but I presume I was born and died before you."

"Ya's just a scrawny fourteen-year old kid in a white, long-sleeved, turtle-neck with messed up light-brown hair that's way too long."

"My hair _barely_ covers my eyes. And _you_ are a young male with a white muscle shirt with short black hair. Are we done now?"

"No. Ya also look like ya haven't been in the sun for ya entire life."

"And _you_ look like your mouth has grown one-point-five times its normal size."

We glared at one another, neither of us blinking. A moment has passed and then... we laughed.

"Ya haven't changed aftuh all these years, British Einstein."

"Neither had you, Lewis&Clark. Now then, let us take a look at that incredible map of yours."

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><p><strong>AN: Two more of my original characters have been introduced: British Einstein and Lewis&Clark. In this chapter I explained more about Everlost if any of you never read the book trilogy.**


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